


Some Healthy Competition

by heyguysitsmerob



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: Mirai-hen, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of Kibougamine Gakuen, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 14:29:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7577650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyguysitsmerob/pseuds/heyguysitsmerob
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As they prepare to apprehend the Ultimate Yakuza, Great Gozu devises a way to instill a sense of adventure into his mission partner, the less than enthusiastic Izayoi. Thus, battling their way through a den of brainwashed Yakuza becomes not only a battle against Ultimate Despair, but a competition against each other. Great Gozu might just make a man out of his underclassman yet. Takes place pre-SDR2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Healthy Competition

Great Gozu squatted down next to the sewer manhole. As he put his hand on the opening, ready to throw open the hatch and leap down at a moment’s notice, a shiver crept across his shoulders and down his spine. Whether it was the cold night air or his nerves, there was no way to tell. He looked up at his companion. “Are you ready, friend?”

Izayoi’s cool demeanor blended perfectly with the night atmosphere. Gozu, a man with many sentiments, had to take a moment to appreciate the beauty of the situation. All around them lay a destroyed cityscape, ravaged by countless battles fought in the name of hope. To the left a toppled apartment complex blocked the street, and to the right a florist shop lay in ruin. Gozu was already a man when the Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic Event in Human History ravaged the planet. Izayoi, however, was still in the prime of his youth, likely struggling to find his place in the world. Gozu knew for sure that after he graduated from Hope’s Peak Academy he had some misgivings about the path that he had been selected to take. Was it too late for him to become a painter? Or a musician? Had his very acceptance into Hope’s Peak damned him to a life of pro wrestling forever? Did Izayoi also feel this way?

“Stop looking at me like that.” His cool eyes flicked down to regard Gozu with unabashed contempt. “Your mask creeps me out.” He reached deep into one of his pockets and pulled out a handful of what appeared to be normal jelly beans. Gozu knew better.

He rose to his feet. “It’s normal to be nervous in this kind of—”

“Be quiet,” Izayoi said around the jelly beans in his mouth. His eyes were shut, and his cheeks were turning a soft shade of pink. He chewed agonizingly slowly, grinding the excitement of the moment to a halt.

All Gozu could do was stand back and appreciate the dozens of stars glittering overhead as his colleague enjoyed his impromptu snack.. The heavens had been shining a whole lot brighter as of late, since all of the light pollution was gone. Gozu knew that Izayoi wasn’t just munching on his candy to annoy him; the Ultimate Confectioner was sure to have laced the treats with performance enhancing drugs that were only a couple of compounds away from being high-grade steroids. It turned Gozu’s stomach to think that the young man next to him might already have a dependence on the sweets that he kept stashed away in his pocket. One too many good men in the pro wrestling scene had gone bad under the influence of drugs for Gozu’s liking.

Underneath his mask, almost inaudibly, he sighed. If the two of them were to do this together, they would have to get along. Not being able to connect with his fellow Ultimate could mean death for both of them. “You lack romance, son.”

Izayoi finally swallowed, but his eyes were still trained on the sewer opening. “Don’t call me ‘son’. You’re only six years older than me.” Gozu remained silent, intending to make it clear that that was an unsatisfactory answer. Izayoi put his hand in his pocket, likely gauging whether or not another mouthful of candy was necessary. He decided against it. “I got plenty of romance in middle school,” he said. He looked up to finally meet Gozu’s eyes, or at least the cow eyes that served as a proxy for his own. Half-lidded and decidedly disinterested, Izayoi’s eyes betrayed nothing of what was going on in his head.

Despite his obviously more impressive physical stature, Gozu was still the shorter of the two. He tilted his chin up and crossed his arms. He knew just the way to catch the young man’s attention. “I propose a challenge.”

“No.” Izayoi knelt down and prepared to open the hatch himself.

Gozu put his boot on it. “Back when I was your age, there was nothing that got my blood pumping better than a good competition between men. It’ll be good for you.”

Izayoi regarded the massive appendage that blocked his access to the sewer. “What did you have in mind?” He didn’t try to conceal the edge in his voice.

“We’re sure to encounter a massive amount of opposition down there. Whoever can incapacitate the most enemies wins.”

Izayoi rose to his feet, now standing closer than before. “When you say ‘incapacitate’...” Gozu noticed the gleam of metal just inside his sleeve, and there was no need for him to continue.

Before Gozu had a chance to respond, Munakata’s voice cut in through their earpieces. _“Gozu. Izayoi. The Ultimate Swordswoman has appeared, just as we hoped. Are you in position?”_

“Not yet,” Izayoi said, touching a hand to his ear. He gave Gozu a pointed glare.

 _“Then move it. I don’t have to remind you that this could be our only chance. Bring him in dead. Don’t take any chances by trying to apprehend him alive.”_ They both heard a click, indicating that Munakata had once again deactivated the communicators. Whatever it was that caught his attention, they could only guess.

For a few seconds, it was silent. “What do I get if I win?” Izayoi asked.

“You young people always have to get something out of it, don’t you?” Now it was Izayoi’s turn to be silent, prompting further dialogue. “Fine. If you win, then I’ll put in a good word for you to replace Taichi as the 9th Division head.” Aoki Taichi graduated from Hope’s Peak a year before Gozu in the 68th class, bearing the title of Ultimate Arms Dealer. He had been crippled below the waist due to a strike from the Ultimate Team Manager two weeks earlier, and debate had been spawned about whether or not he was still fit to oversee the Future Foundation’s weapon distribution. Gozu had been planning on recommending Izayoi anyway, since he had intimate knowledge not only of the distribution of, but also the production of weapons. “But if I win…” Gozu eyed Izayoi’s pocket. “You must agree to stop eating Ando’s candy.”

Izayoi narrowed his eyes. What was more valuable to him, Gozu wondered: a promotion within the only remaining peacekeeping organization in the world, or candy cooked up by a psychopath? His response would give Gozu the answer. “You’re on,” he said at last. A surprisingly firm handshake between the two of them sealed the deal. No, perhaps Gozu shouldn’t have been surprised at how firm the kid’s handshake is. He had been through a lot, after all.

 

* * *

 

The walkway on the side of the sewer was wide enough that Great Gozu and Izayoi could walk side by side with room to spare. The former had ditched his restrictive suit jacket outside, leaving his torso free to maneuver with his sleeves rolled up. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to part with his favorite blue tie, though.

Gozu was doing a pretty good job of masking his footsteps for his size, but he was doing so at a much slower pace than Izayoi, who was even able to take time to study the floor. As Gozu suspected, it was due to more than shyness. “The floor and walls are awfully clean for a sewer, don’t you think?” Izayoi asked. Now that he mentioned it, there was no dirt or grime to speak of anywhere near where people would be walking. They were definitely in the right place.

The murky darkness of the sewage in the canal next to them unsettled Gozu’s mind and stomach. “What do you think they have waiting for us?”

Izayoi grabbed Gozu’s arm, pulling his head down closer. “Can’t you keep it down?”

“Sorry, it’s a habit,” Gozu whispered at just beneath a normal person’s speaking volume.

A sound just around the bend ahead caught both of their attentions. It sounded like a low rumbling, that would start and stop at random intervals. Izayoi immediately pulled away from Gozu and pressed himself against the corner, clearing the distance between soundlessly in only a couple of seconds. Doing his best to follow suit, Gozu arrived after Izayoi had already had time to check around the corner and assess the situation. There might have been a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, but having no recollection of Izayoi ever smiling before, Gozu wasn’t sure.

Without appearing to move a single muscle, a knife slid out of Izayoi’s sleeve and into his hand as he rounded the bend. Following behind, Gozu was finally able to see what they were dealing with. A man wearing a suit and sunglasses had fallen asleep in a chair, snoring loudly enough that they were able to hear it from down the hall. He sat in front of a large metal wall that had clearly been added after the sewer system was built, plugging up the whole tunnel. A single door was behind the chair.

Izayoi took a step forward, but found Gozu’s hand on his shoulder, holding him back. The look that he gave him was drenched in malice. He wrenched his shoulder away. Gozu was all too aware of the knife in Izayoi’s hand.

Being careful not to make any more noise than necessary, Gozu walked around Izayoi and up to the guard. He placed one hand on the back of his neck, and one over his mouth and nose. Then he squeezed. The poor man awoke with a start, thrashing around in Gozu’s grasp. He kicked his legs out away from the chair as his arms flew to Gozu’s, trying desperately to gain any leverage at all against the massive man. His screams were muffled by the fingers over his mouth and, after awhile, they subsided. Gozu put his finger under the man’s nose to ensure that he was still breathing. “That’s one for me,” he said, walking over to the door.

Izayoi plunged his knife into the man’s chest. “Me too.”

Gozu’s immediate instinct was to throttle Izayoi for killing the now defenseless man, but he was rational enough to realize that it would accomplish nothing. Instead, he took three deep breaths from the privacy of his mask. If that’s how Izayoi chose to do things, it would be best for him to just accept it and not get in the way of the mission. “The door is locked,” he whispered after testing it. After noting no visible keyholes, he added, “From the inside.”

From his coat, Izayoi produced a kunai knife and short sword, which he brought to ready position in each hand. “No more talking.”

He was right. Gozu brought his fists up to his chin and kicked the door with a tenth of his strength. It was torn clean off of its hinges, flying backwards and landing on the floor inside. Izayoi rushed in between the wall and Gozu, who wasn’t far behind.

Cigar smoke filled the room, which did nothing to disguise the ever-present smell of sewage. Steel plates covered the canal, effectively turning the tunnel into a domed room. On one of these plates sat a large table with five people playing poker. Or, they had been. Izayoi’s kunai knife was already buried in the neck of the closest one as he rushed the next with his shortsword. The man was hardly on his feet before it pierced his heart, blood pouring out across his white shirt. Brandishing his handgun, the man next to him screamed for backup. In a split second he was screaming due to his detached hand with his gun still clenched in it. But he wasn’t for much longer. “Two, three, four,” Izayoi counted.

The two on the other side of the table were Gozu’s. The first already had his gun out, which Gozu crushed like a tin can with a single hand. He was dispatched with a backfist to the back of his head, followed up by a straight punch to the second’s forehead. Both of them fell to the ground immediately. “Two, three.”

The whole affair had taken less than ten seconds. Now three dead bodies and two unconscious ones lay strewn around the table, which still had cards and chips laying on top of it. The fat cigars that the men had been using were all near their bodies. Gozu used his boot to extinguish one; there was no use trying to start a fire in such a small area. His eyes lingered on the corpses at Izayoi’s feet.

It didn’t go unnoticed. Izayoi walked up to the table, being careful not to get any of the blood that now covered the floor on his boots. Fiddling with the cards still sitting on the table he said, “Don’t feel too bad for him. This guy had a shit poker hand.” He indicated the man whose hands he had cut off, and chuckled wryly. A few round candies shoved into his mouth put a stop to it. “If you ask me, there’s nothing better than a couple of candies after you exert yourself.” He was more cheerful than Gozu had ever seen him.

“I’m more of an ice cream man, myself.”

Gozu was ready to move on. He kicked open the next door. A small whirring sound was the only warning that he got. A dozen bullets slammed into his chest. He didn’t have time to register what was going on. He fell backwards into the wall. All of the strength had been forced out of his body with his breath. His hands clutched at his chest. His mouth gasped for air. Izayoi had only been a step behind, his weapons at the ready. The man holding the machine gun’s laugh was cut short by the shortsword careening through the air toward his neck.

Izayoi squatted down next to Gozu. “You’d better be careful. There’s no such thing as bullet _proof_ , just bullet _resistant_.” He indicated Gozu’s bulletproof vest with his hand.

“Ugh.” Gozu groaned as he sat up straighter against the wall. He would be dead at that moment if it weren’t for the vest constructed by the man next to him. It was made out of special metal alloys that would be far too heavy for anyone other than Great Gozu to wear. “The previous room must have been set up intentionally to make it seem like they weren’t expecting us.”

“Meaning that they _are_ expecting us?”

“I wouldn’t rule it out as a possibility. In any case, you have my thanks.” Gozu got to his feet. Even though none of the bullets pierced his skin, his chest felt like it had been hit by a train. Hell, that might have been preferable.

“You can thank me later.” Izayoi started walking to the other side of the room, giving the machine gun now laying on the floor a kick. He turned back to Gozu, a toothy smile now playing on his lips. “You’re losing by two, now.” His eyes were wider than Gozu had ever had ever seen them before, the dull lights cast by scattered bulbs playing off of their whites.

He crossed the room in three easy strides. There would be plenty of time to feel pain later, he decided. For now, with his weapon-toting companion by his side, it was time for action. “All of you that came after the 71st class don’t have any respect for your elders,” Gozu said. “I’ll show you how we in the 69th class do things.” He kicked in the next door.

 

* * *

 

“Y...you’re monsters!” The man scrambled backwards, trying to put as much distance between himself and the two men in front of him as possible. “You aren’t human!” There were tears streaming down his cheeks.

“Huh?” Izayoi removed his sword from the stomach of the man he had just skewered and took a few steps toward the man speaking. “Did I just hear one of you despair-filled freaks call _me_ inhuman?” He was so close now that he could touch him. “Why don’t you repeat that for me?”

The man screamed, pulling out a gun that he had underneath his jacket. Izayoi slapped it away with the back of his hand, sending it careening across the floor. Before its owner could start scrambling to retrieve it, Izayoi’s fist met his face. They met over and over in a multitude of fashions. The man wailed and resisted at first, but it didn’t take long for both to completely die down.

Gozu had been holding up another man by his shirt, whom he then dropped. “How many is that for you?” He asked.

Panting, Izayoi stood up. “Nineteen.”

“Me too. In fact, I have a few ideas about who we should use as a tiebreaker.”

The path in front of them was getting wider, and had been sloping upward for quite some time. In this room, at last, they were confronted with a set of stairs that seemed to lead to the surface. As they progressed through the network of tunnels the rooms had begun to look less and less like sewers, until now it appeared that they were standing in a normal room. A normal room with nine dead or unconscious bodies in it, underneath an apocalyptic landscape. “Where do you think we are now?” Gozu gestured at the ceiling.

After yanking one of his shurikens free from a man’s temple, Izayoi pondered it. “Underneath the old bank, maybe.”

“Funny.” Gozu looked at the stairs in front of them. “I was thinking the same thing.”

As they climbed them, Izayoi popped a large red orb into his mouth. Gozu couldn’t help but be curious. “What’s that one got in it?” he asked.

Izayoi mulled it over for a few moments.

“Cherry.”

The two of them emerged into a ruined bank, just as they predicted. It was far from a place that Gozu would trust to handle his credit, though. Steel plates just like the ones in the sewer covered every door, window, and hole in the wall. What used to be a unique, historical building in the center of a sprawling city was now no different than the buildings surrounding it. Old, falling apart, and filled with soon to be dead people.

Gozu and Izayoi stood in the center of what was practically an atrium. It was clear upon entering the room that the stairs they just climbed had been carved out of the floor since the Tragedy. The hole leading down to them was way out of place, and the steps looked shoddy at best. Teller booths lined the walls on the bottom level, with doors behind them leading to rooms that had surely been plundered long ago. A second level looked over the first, with sections of it completely collapsed and fallen down to the first level. It was on these balconies that the legions of henchmen stood, all clad in the same black suit and sunglasses ensemble as those before. And, in the optimal spot to look over it all, sat the Ultimate Yakuza in an ornate red and gold chair. When Kuzuryuu spoke, his voice filled the whole room.

“You guys are so fuckin’ annoying,” he said. His outfit consisted of his usual pin-striped suit and hat, with an eyepatch covering his right eye, all cleaned and pressed to perfection. Gozu wondered what laundromats were still in service. The Ultimate Yakuza sat with his right leg crossed over his left, twirling a revolver around in his hand.

While Izayoi’s attention roamed all around the room, taking in every last detail of their situation, Gozu had his eyes trained on Kuzuryuu. “I apologize for any inconvenience that we might have caused.” He clenched his fists. His chest was still sore from earlier, but he couldn’t let that distract him. Each and every one of the men in the room were surely armed, and all it would take was a word from their boss to have fifty bullets rocketing toward the Future Foundation members’ heads.

Kuzuryuu waved his gun around as he talked, not paying any attention to who he was pointing it at at any particular moment. “I can forgive you if you kill yourselves,” he said.

“I’m afraid that we can’t do that.” Sweat dripped down Gozu’s forehead. Though he wouldn’t admit it out loud, he was tired. Up to that point he had been hitting all of Kuzuryuu’s henchmen with a twentieth of his strength, but as his focus slipped, so would his restraint. In this state, he might kill the next person that he punched.

Kuzuryuu sighed. “What a pain in the ass. Why can’t you be more like this guy?” He indicated a man standing to his left with his gun. “You. Kill yourself.”

“Yes, sir.” The man put his pistol underneath his chin and pulled the trigger. Blood splattered the wall behind him as he fell, some of it getting on Kuzuryuu’s suit. Two men pulled out handkerchiefs and began dabbing at it while he didn’t move a muscle.

If Kuzuryuu’s voice filled the room, Gozu’s overflowed from it. “How could you?” he shouted up at the Remnant of Despair in front of him. “How could you command an innocent man to take his own life?” His breathing was heavy now as his heart raced, pumping hot blood throughout his body. His mask started to get hotter and hotter as he exhaled full, angry breaths into it.

“Innocent?” Kuzuryuu’s laugh was childish, completely out of place in the tense room. “That man has killed more people in the past week than you could count on both hands! He deserved to die more than me!” He punctuated his statement by firing his gun off into the head of another nearby man, who fell next to his comrade. It was one of the people who had just moments ago been dabbing at his suit.

“Stop it!” Gozu shouted. His voice, honed in rings with thousands of people watching, echoed around the silent chamber several times before dying out. “Until now I justified your actions as those taken to further your beliefs, but now I see that this ‘despair’ is just senseless killing! Murdering one’s own allies without a thought is something that I can never forgive!” Gozu’s presence dominated the room. With his voice and his spirit combined, he might as well have been ten feet tall as he preached.

Izayoi stood directly behind him, knowing that if a fight broke out they would want to be close. “Control yourself, Gozu,” he said.

“Like hell I will!”

Kuzuryuu laughed again, this one more shrill and deranged than the last. “You Future Foundation bastards crack me up!” he said. “All of this talk about ‘killing’ this, and ‘I can’t forgive’ that! It pisses me the fuck off! You talk as if your shitty hope is actually able to affect things, when all you do is sit on your asses in whatever—!” Gozu hadn’t noticed Izayoi throw the kunai knife until it was already a fraction of a second away from landing in between Kuzuryuu’s eyes. Instead it found its home in the back of a man who threw himself in the way. Coincidentally, Kuzuryuu’s forehead was at about the same height as the man’s heart, which is where the knife was buried. “Nice block!” Kuzuryuu patted him on the shoulder, sending him toppling over the railing and down to the bottom floor. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Gozu could have sworn that he heard Izayoi mumble, “Twenty.”

“You little shit!” Gozu took a few steps forward, if for no other reason than for Kuzuryuu to hear him clearer. “What point does any of this serve?” He couldn’t help but feel like a peasant imploring his king not to tear down his village.

“What point?” Kuzuryuu extended his arms to either side, as if indicating his legion of men should be explanation enough. “You know, you Future Fighters wouldn’t even be so bad if you weren’t so damn self-righteous. All of these assholes would lay down their lives for me, and I would do the same for my own boss. That’s the difference between us. Can you honestly say that you would die for that old bastard, or the dick in the white suit? Without a moment’s hesitation?”

Izayoi chimed in for the first time in the conversation. “You would die for your boss? Whose death she made sure to broadcast to all of us?” This question was clearly calculated, and pushed all of the buttons that he’d hoped it would.

“No! Shut your fucking mouth!” Kuzuryuu shouted, slamming his fist on the arm of his chair. “The boss isn’t dead! Not by a long shot! She still lives on, see? Right here!” He lifted up his eyepatch, revealing the grotesque area that used to be his right eye. There were scars all around the socket from when he clawed out his own eye to replace it with the one that now sat there. It was a glassy shade of blue, and rolled around freely in the socket as Kuzuryuu moved his head. “That’s the thing about despair, you know? Hope is just a spark in your heart, which is already filled to the brim. There isn’t room to fully devote yourself! But despair fills you! It _becomes_ you! There isn’t room for any distractions! Don’t you get it?” His voice had been steadily rising, until it was now almost as loud as Gozu’s.

“No, I don’t get it.” He had managed to suppress his anger during Kuzuryuu’s rant, and was now speaking at his regular voice again. Which was still very loud. “Come with us now, Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu, and we can avoid any more bloodshed. Nobody else has to die.”

_“Bring him in dead. Don’t take any chances by trying to apprehend him alive.”_

Munakata would do things his way, and Gozu would do things his. It didn’t matter what Kuzuryuu had done under Junko Enoshima’s brainwashing; he would not kill a child. Not yet, at least.

“Getting my head chopped off by you assholes doesn’t sound too good to me.” Kuzuryuu had apparently managed to collect himself again, moving his eyepatch back into place. “Drop your guns,” he said to all of the men gathered on the balconies. Clattering was heard all around the room as dozens of firearms hit the tile. “Now go kill ‘em slowly.”

Three men formed a wall around Kuzuryuu while the rest surged forward. Some jumped and others were pushed as a tide of bodies erupted over the railing and down onto the floor. Those that were lucky only broke their legs; those that were unlucky landed on their heads and died on impact. Anyone that came after the initial wave was blessed with a host of other bodies to land on, hardly hurting themselves at all in the melee that broke out just to reach their targets.

Gozu and Izayoi stood back to back in the absolute center of the room. The former had his fists up while the latter had produced two katanas from somewhere underneath his coat. “Don’t lose count,” was all Izayoi had time to say before they were overwhelmed.

With what he had meant to be a tenth of his strength, Gozu swept his right arm in a wide arc, catching three men up in it and knocking them backwards. He felt their ribs cracking underneath, and would have felt remorse if he were in any other situation. Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two. One man got a hold of Gozu’s left arm, which he swung up above his head and down onto another that had been approaching. Twenty-three, twenty-four. He delivered a kick to someone’s stomach on reflex with far more force than he had meant. The man folded over his leg and went flying backwards. Twenty-five.

Twenty-six, twenty-seven.

Thirty.

Thirty-five.

The foes kept coming and Great Gozu kept knocking them down, as if it were one of his pro wrestling specials airing on Saturday night. The thought crossed his mind that he may have been counting the same people twice, if he hit them and they actually managed to get back up again. He doubted that Izayoi had the same concern. A glance behind him showed the Ultimate Blacksmith stabbing one of his swords into a man, using the free hand to throw a knife at another one, and then pulling his sword back out again. Then he was gone.

Gozu couldn’t believe that he had actually just disappeared.

After dispatching a few more people, he located him again. Izayoi was running along the upper balcony towards Kuzuryuu, dual katanas in hand. The jackass had left Gozu alone on the bottom floor to deal with the remaining henchmen while he charged the boss! Did he know that Gozu had been planning on sparing him? Or was he just simply tired of waiting? In any case, it might be better this way. If Izayoi was the one to officially apprehend Kuzuryuu, in the manner that Munakata wanted, his promotion would be assured.

This was no time to get lost in thought. Gozu bull rushed one man, thrusting his shoulder into his stomach and sending him toppling to the ground. That should have been forty-two. He heard the men that had stayed behind to guard Kuzuryuu crying out in pain and figured that a cry from Kuzuryuu wouldn’t be far behind. Instead, Gozu heard something hit the ground behind him, accompanied by a displeased grunt. Delivering a well-controlled blow to the back of the final henchman’s head, Gozu turned around.

Izayoi was laying on the ground behind him, his katanas nowhere in sight. His coat was almost completely covered in blood, though due to the lack of abrasions it was clearly not his own. From the angle that his left wrist was twisted at, he appeared to have snapped it trying to break his fall. “That Kamukura guy is here,” was all that he said.

Gozu looked up at the balcony. Perched on the railing, standing with his arms crossed and his black hair cascading out behind him, was the Ultimate Hope, Izuru Kamukura. “Could you be any more predictable?” His tone was dripping with apathy. “Obviously if you were able to successfully draw out the sword girl, you would try to kill the guy with the eyepatch. That’s common sense.”

Kuzuryuu was standing on the ground behind him. “You could at least call me by my title, bastard. If you say ‘eyepatch guy’ one more time, I’ll kill you.”

Kamukura didn’t take his eyes off of Gozu. “Quiet, scum. The adults are talking.” When Kuzuryuu tried to pull his revolver, Kamukura snatched it out of his hand and hit him across the forehead with it all in less than a second. “Open your mouth again and I’ll have you eat it.” With blood dripping down his forehead, Kuzuryuu went back to take a seat in his chair.

If previously Gozu had been addressing a king, he was now addressing a god. “So you’ve seen through us since the beginning.” He had to buy time for Izayoi to get back on his feet and ready for combat again.

“You all have bored me ever since you gathered together in the shattered remains of your pretentious academy. Frankly, I had more fun slaughtering its little student council than I’ve had slaughtering you. Most of you refuse to even scream.” Kamukura indicated Izayoi, who was now back on his feet. His left arm was hanging limply, while his right one was clutching a blood-spattered kunai knife. How many weapons did he have left? “Anyway, nothing you could possibly say would be of any interest to me. So let’s get started.”

Izayoi jumped out of the way as Kamukura landed among the blood and bodies that now coated the floor. _Yes. This is what Ultimate Despair truly is,_ Gozu thought as he looked upon him. The man in the suit with the billowing black hair, walking through pools of people’s blood to enact his will. Great Gozu was truly afraid. No, terrified. He found himself trying to look anywhere but the red eyes that were locked onto him, calmly assessing him. Not only was Kamukura coming to enact his will, he was coming to enact his will upon _him_.

Gozu wasn’t sure if he would have resisted if it weren’t for Izayoi. Paying no attention to his broken wrist, he wielded his kunai knife as if they had just jumped into the sewer five minutes ago. He clearly had no intention to give into the despair that Kamukura exuded, and if they were going to take him down, they would need to do it together, damn it. He was Great Gozu, and he was here alongside Sonosuke Izayoi to apprehend the Ultimate Yakuza, Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu. When he thought about it simply, casting aside all thoughts of the Ultimate Hope and Ultimate Despair, everything was clear. Izuru Kamukura was standing in his way.

“Ora!” he shouted, charging at Kamukura. A third of his strength should be all that was necessary against a pompous kid like this. With Izayoi coming at him from the back, there was no escape.

“How troublesome.” Leaping straight up into the air, Kamukura twisted around and landed behind Gozu without making a sound, or giving any indication that the action required any effort at all. He grabbed him by his collar and belt and heaved the gigantic wrestler up over his head and onto the floor. He grabbed Izayoi’s unbroken wrist as the kunai came swinging at him, twisting its wielder around and stomping on his shin from behind. Gozu heard it snap as he scrambled back to his feet. Izayoi cried out in pain as Kamukura threw him to the ground underneath him. “There’s the scream that I was looking for earlier,” Kamukura said.

A ball and chain dropped out of Izayoi’s right sleeve, which he swung around as he rolled onto his back. Kamukura reached around to block the chain with his left hand, but it stopped short. The ball made several short circles around his wrist, thoroughly ensnaring it. With all of the strength that he could muster with just one arm, he yanked Kamukura forward. It was just enough to knock him off balance as Gozu charged in, swinging his right arm at full force. Kamukura managed to plant his feet again and catch Gozu’s fist with his right arm, the one not wrapped in chains. He stomped on Izayoi’s chest as hard as he could for leverage, and yanked his left hand back to snap the chains just in time to block Gozu’s follow-up punch. Izayoi kicked up with his unbroken leg, catching Kamukura in the stomach and sending him stumbling backwards.

Gozu helped Izayoi to his feet, and let him lean on his arm for support. The two of them were looking more haggard than they had in a long time. The dress shirt that Gozu wore was peppered with holes from the machine gun earlier, and his favorite blue tie had been torn off at some point during the melee. His knuckles had been skinned up from all of the punches he’d delivered, and blood leaked down his fingers. Izayoi’s broken leg was only able to gingerly brush the ground, and his wrist had already turned blue, swelling more by the minute. A stream of his own blood, in contrast with that covering his coat, was making its way down from his temple.

Kamukura popped his neck on the left and right side, getting ready for round two.

“What’s your number?” Gozu asked.

“Forty-five.”

“Damn. I’ve only got forty-three.”

“Seems like you’ve still got a chance to tie it up.”

“It certainly seems that way.”

Kuzuryuu was still watching from the safety of his chair, up above. “Could you just fucking finish them already? I’ve got shit to do.” He kicked a severed arm away from the base of his chair.

“You make a good point, for once,” Kamukura said. He turned his attention back to the Future Foundation members. “I’ve got some more interesting things starting up pretty soon. The fact of the matter is that I can’t continue to be weighed down by boring people like you, who are only interested in bringing back the world that punishes people for having talent. There are those like me, and then are those like them.” He gestured to the piles of bodies lying everywhere. “Who have to band together and put rules in place to keep those with talent in check. It’s blatant oppression; even you should be able to understand that.” Gozu was still thinking up a response when he moved.

Kamukura appeared to have teleported the ten feet in between them, though that was certainly impossible. He punched Gozu in the stomach and kicked him backwards, leaving Izayoi without any support. Kamukura grabbed his face and slammed it into his knee, sending him back to the floor. He found himself with Kamukura’s foot pressed against his throat. “But, there might be one last bit of enjoyment that I can get from fighting with you.”

Gozu prepared himself for the worst. The implication was clear; one bad move and Kamukura would snap Izayoi’s neck. It wasn’t certain whether or not Izayoi, laying facedown, was still conscious. “Fight me like a man,” Gozu said. “Izayoi can’t defend himself any more. Let him go.”

“Stuff like fair fights are things of the past. Remnants of the world that the Future Foundation fights so desperately to preserve. Those weak ideals, which cracked under the slightest provocation from Junko Enoshima, are what we’re seeking to destroy.”

“Don’t you dare say her name so casually!” Kuzuryuu shouted.

Kamukura paid him no mind. “I want you to beg.”

The ensuing silence was telling. “Beg?” Gozu asked.

“I want Great Gozu, Ultimate Pro Wrestler, head of the Future Foundation’s 12th Division, to get on his knees, press his forehead to the ground, and beg for his comrade’s life. If you do, I’ll kill you and leave him here for your backup to clean up. If not, I’ll just go ahead and kill you both anyway. It’s no sweat off my back.”

Izayoi’s voice was weak and broken. He didn’t move his body at all when he spoke. “Don’t give him the…” Kamukura increased the pressure on his neck, cutting off the rest of his sentence.

The request wasn’t too complicated. And, in the situation that they were in, it might even be considered generous. “I understand.” Gozu got down onto his knees. At the very least, it was their best way to stall for time. As his head got closer to the ground, he noticed something mingling with the all too prevalent smell of blood. Something that he’d only had the misfortune to smell a couple of times in his life. “I, Great Gozu, implore you, Izuru Kamukura, to please spare Izayoi’s life!” While his voice sounded desperate, he was smiling underneath his mask.

“Too bad.” Kamukura raised his leg for one last stomp that would surely snap Izayoi’s neck.

That’s when the gas Gozu had smelled moments earlier hit them full force. A purple miasma billowed out from the stairs, filling the whole room in seconds. Gozu was able to hold his breath, but Kamukura had no such advantage. “Annoying.” He immediately jumped up to the top level, safe from the encroaching cloud for a little bit longer.

“What the fuck is going on?” Kuzuryuu was out of his chair now, looking left and right for any explanation. Kamukura grabbed him and threw him over his shoulder. He fired blind shots from his pistol through the smoke, but every single one missed any potential mark by a long shot. The two of them disappeared through a door leading to a different part of the bank.

Gozu could hardly make out Seiko Kimura’s form through the dense fog that was now floating across every surface. She ran up the stairs as fast as she could, the vacuum-like machine she had used to cast the fog still in hand. Her respirator mask made her immune to the sleeping gas she had spewed out, like always. Even while holding his breath, Gozu wasn’t able to resist sleep. He sat back on his rear as Kimura approached him.

“No one asked for you,” was all Izayoi was able to say before passing out.

“We could never have predicted that the Ultimate Hope would show up here. You’re just lucky that Izayoi was able to tell us over the radio, and that I was as close as I was. We have orders to pull out immediately.” She put her hand behind Gozu’s neck so that his head wouldn’t hit the floor too hard when he passed out.

 _Ah, so when he said ‘That Kamukura guy is here’, he was talking into his earpiece. That makes sense,_ Gozu thought as his wits left him. At least nobody died. Or nobody that he knew, anyway. “Oi, Kimura,” he said.

As his muscles began to relax, his body got more and more limp, until she was struggling just to hold him up. “...yes?”

“Make sure you remind me to talk to Munakata about the 9th Division later.” Then, at last, Great Gozu fell unconscious.


End file.
